


Don't Shoot Me Santa

by ivoryline



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Angst, Banter, Christmas, Falling In Love, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Light Angst, Love Confessions, M/M, how many christmas cliches can i throw in one fic, i swear this isnt a crackfic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-19
Updated: 2019-12-22
Packaged: 2021-02-26 05:46:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,241
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21858523
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ivoryline/pseuds/ivoryline
Summary: Admittedly, Crowley wasn't well versed in Christmas traditions but he really didn't think any of them included murder.Aziraphale and Crowley must work their way through a series of Christmas cliches under threat of discorporation.or: Santa has had enough of Aziraphale and Crowley's shit
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 10
Kudos: 22





	1. Chapter 1

"The thing is, the thing is," Crowley hiccuped, "the thing is that tomatoes are definitely not a fruit." He was slouched halfway down Aziraphale's couch, which had politely molded itself to Crowley's shape over the years, with a wine glass perched precariously in his fingers. Aziraphale had lost all pretense of proper posture about half a bottle ago and gestured at Crowley with his own wine glass from his chair.

  
"Yes, they are. I read an article about it once," Aziraphale said and was momentarily distracted by a few drops of his wine dripping onto the carpet. He gave them a stern look and they promptly returned to his glass. 

  
"Listen, angel, listen. I _know_ plants. I'm tellin' you they're not a fruit," Crowley insisted.

  
"I _am_ listening," Aziraphale huffed, "I'm listening to you be wrong. Tomatoes are a fruit." Crowley downed the rest of his wine and slammed his glass on the table between them.

  
"Alright, then. How many fruit salads have you eaten that included tomatoes, hm?" Aziraphale looked perplexed. Crowley looked smug. Confident that he'd won this round, Crowley poured himself another glass and leaned back into the couch. It was December 1st, less than a handful of months since the Apocawasn't, and snow was gently falling outside the warm bookshop.

  
December was usually a very busy month for the angel and the demon. Aziraphale would work very hard to spread peace and goodwill while Crowley would work very hard to spread commercialization and greed and the month would end in a draw. Now that they were both fired, excommunicated, persona non grata they intended to do nothing at all. That was all they had done, actually, since the world didn't end.

  
Crowley wasn't disappointed. He really wasn't. Sure, they had dined at the Ritz like Aziraphale had said all those years ago in his car with a neon light back drop. Sure, they had spent a great deal more time together at various other restaurants, at the bookshop, at St. James, and even at a dingy pub that Crowley had convinced Aziraphale to go to. That was all well and good and, quite frankly, more than he thought he'd get but Crowley _wanted_.

  
Crowley wasn't sure he had the proper words for what it was exactly that he wanted, but he still had that ache behind his ribs that he'd been carrying around for a few thousand years. When he first noticed it he thought he would get used to its weight. He thought he could handle it, hide it, smother it but the burden only seemed to get heavier as time wore on.

  
He watched Aziraphale settle back into his chair and cradle his glass to his chest. The angel pursed his lips and Crowley just _knew_ he was about to say something completely ridiculous. The ache in his chest seemed to swell and he worked very hard to keep his smug expression intact. Before he could speak, however, all the lights went out in the shop.

  
"Did you forget to pay the power bill, angel?" Crowley asked dryly.

  
"The what?" 

  
The lights came back on and Aziraphale and Crowley shared a look that said _well, that was odd_. Aziraphale once again prepared to speak and was interrupted by someone delicately clearing their throat. Crowley nearly jumped out his skin. He hissed, he knew he was doing it and couldn't stop. Aziraphale sloshed wine all down his front. The third person in the room who definitely had not been there before the lights went out stood calmly in front of the fireplace and waited for them to regain their composure.

  
He was a large man in every sense of the word, frightfully tall and rather robust around the middle. All of his hair, his bushy eyebrows, and his impressive beard were a stark white color that put Aziraphale's own curls to shame. His clothing was all a jarring shade of red offset with white trim and a pair of heavy black boots.

  
"Santa?" Aziraphale choked out.

  
"What are _you_ doing here?" Crowley was making a valiant effort to regain his composure with a mild degree of success. He was sitting on the cushions instead of the back of the couch, at least. 

  
"I'm here," Santa said, crossing his arms, "because you two have been very, very naughty." Crowley scoffed. Santa narrowed his eyes. "Yes, Crowley, I'm aware that you're a demon but that doesn't change the fact that you're on my list." 

  
"Why am I on the list?" Poor Aziraphale really did look confused.

  
"Aziraphale, I'm a busy man I don't have time to list out the many, many reasons why you have never made the Nice list," Santa started, "but let's talk about the newest offense since it was a joint effort between the two of you: Armageddon."

  
"Oh, not this shit again," Crowley groaned and scrubbed a hand down his face. After 11 years of stress he was just about sick to death of discussing Armageddon. It happened then it didn't the end, let's all move on. 

  
"You two have ran rampant for far too long and I haven't been able to do anything about it, but now you've really screwed up," Santa said, uncrossing his arms to jab his finger at them.

  
"Well, I think-" Aziraphale began but Santa cut him off.

  
"I'm not here to argue the point. I've already made my list."

  
"Did you check it twice?" Crowley was never very good at keeping his mouth shut.

  
" _Crowley_ ," Aziraphale hissed. Santa just shook his head.

  
"Has anyone ever told you that you're very rude?" he asked. Aziraphale raised his eyebrows and glanced at Crowley like he had told Crowley that himself, because he had. Several times. Crowley shrugged. "Now, if the two of you could shut up for any length of time I'll explain your punishment."

  
"Punishment? What happened to getting coal?" Aziraphale asked, bewildered, at the same time Crowley said, "Yeah, no." Crowley snapped his fingers and absolutely nothing happened. Santa smiled but it didn't look terribly nice.

  
"That's not going to work on me. I'm outside your, shall we say, jurisdiction much like War, Pollution, Famine, and Death are. As I was saying-"

  
"Crowley, did you really think you could use a demonic intervention on Santa?" Aziraphale cut in.

  
"Well, why not? How would I know he was one of the Horsemen," Crowley defended himself, "thought he was like Tinkerbell or something. Power of belief and all that." Aziraphale cocked his head.

  
"Tinkerbell? Like from Peter Pan?" he asked.

  
"Yes, from Peter Pan. How many other Tinkerbells do you know?" Crowley shot back.

  
"I don't know _any_ Tinkerbells. I don't think she's real, Crowley," Aziraphale said sadly as if he was breaking a hard truth to the demon.

  
"Enough!" Santa looked like he was reaching his breaking point. "Crowley and Aziraphale, as punishment for thwarting the apocalypse and for being the two most annoying creatures on this planet I am assigning you a list of tasks to complete before midnight on Christmas Eve."

  
"And if we don't do them?" Crowley asked.

  
"Then I'll kill you both," Santa said simply. There was a beat of shocked silence where Aziraphale looked aghast and Crowley looked very, very confused. Admittedly, Crowley wasn't well versed in Christmas traditions but he really didn't think any of them included murder.

  
"Our Head Offices weren't able to destroy us, so good luck with that," Crowley said, deciding false bravado was the way to go.

  
"Oh, I'm not going to bother with holy water or hellfire," Santa said with that patented jolly look, "if you fail to complete all the tasks, together and without miracles or demonic interventions, I will drag the both of you out into the desert and shoot you. Let your Head Offices sort you out then." Santa looked between the angel and the demon and nodded, satisfied with whatever it was he saw. Probably fear. He clapped his hands together once and said, "Right. I'll be in touch." 

  
The lights flashed off and then back on and Old Saint Nick was gone


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There's no way to mess up decorating a Christmas tree, right?

"Santa's kind of a dick." Crowley was leaning against a bookshelf while he watched Aziraphale pace nervously around the shop.

  
"That is not helpful, Crowley," he admonished. It didn't escape Crowley's notice that Aziraphale didn't contradict him. After Santa had left they had both felt the unfortunate need to sober up and have a good, long discussion about what had happened. It might be fairer to call it a series of arguments rather than a discussion, but all the same they agreed there was likely to be only two options.

  
The first option, which Crowley easily subscribed to, was that the tasks would be relatively simple designed to get the two of them to spread Christmas cheer or some such nonsense. The second option, which Aziraphale anxiously subscribed to, was that the tasks would be impossible tasks that set them up for certain failure. Crowley had shrugged and leaned and generally appeared unconcerned for lack of anything better to do. Aziraphale had wrung his hands and paced and straightened his waistcoat a thousand times for lack of anything better to do. Both entities were quickly becoming quite annoyed with each other.

  
"Look, angel, all we can do is wait for the first task. We managed to thwart the apocalypse, surely this can't be much harder," Crowley told him in an effort to prevent Aziraphale pulling his own fingers off.

  
"We botched a great deal of that quite severely, my dear," Aziraphale said wretchedly. He had stopped pacing, at least.

  
"So what," Crowley said with an eye roll, "the end result was the same. We can botch this, too, since that seems to work for us." Aziraphale fell entirely still and gave Crowley a look that could peel paint. He launched into a very impressive rant wherein he told Crowley that he was in no uncertain terms to take this seriously and thoroughly raked him over the coals for being so flippant about the situation. Crowley stood there and took it and restrained himself to a small frown. Chastising Crowley was familiar ground for Aziraphale and if this was making him feel better then so be it, he supposed. 

  
Aziraphale had been going on for around ten minutes while Crowley had tuned him out completely around the four minute mark when they heard a letter come through the mail slot. Aziraphale had really hit his rhythm and didn't seem inclined to stop anytime soon so Crowley pushed off from the bookshelf and made his way to the front of the shop. There was a bright red envelope laying on the floor beneath the mail slot. Crowley picked it up and studied the odd scrawl. There was no postage and no return address and it was simply addressed to "Idiots". 

  
"Aziraphale, you can shut up now. We got our first task," Crowley called back to him. In a flash Aziraphale was standing next to him and attempting to take the envelope out of Crowley's hand. There was a minor scuffle where Crowley used the singular inch he had on Aziraphale's height to keep the envelope out of his reach. Aziraphale gave up with a huff and gestured for Crowley to open the letter. Crowley gave him an easy smile, opened the letter, and began to read. 

  
"What does it say?" Aziraphale asked impatiently, crowding into Crowley's space. He could smell the angel's cologne and made a mental note to thank his barber once again for suggesting it. 

  
"It says: Go to a Christmas tree lot and purchase a tree. The tree must go in either Crowley's flat or Aziraphale's back room and must be decorated. Remember no miracles, no demonic interventions, and it must be done together," Crowley read dutifully. He felt his face break out in a grin. "See, I told you so. Easy Christmas bullshit." Aziraphale snatched the paper out of Crowley's hands to read it for himself. After a moment, Aziraphale sniffed and carefully refolded the letter.

  
"Right. It's rather cold out, dear, would you like to borrow a scarf?"

* * *

  
They ran into a bit of a situation when picking out ornaments for the tree. Crowley wanted all reds and blacks with the goal to be austere and muted. Aziraphale wanted to go full kitsch and simply would not stop picking up every demented looking felt elf in sight. They stood in front of the tinsel while Aziraphale argued that since the tree was going in his shop it should look the way he wants it to and Crowley adamantly told him that he would not have his name attached to the monstrosity Aziraphale wanted.

  
Other shoppers began to edge away from them not wanting to be within swinging range, except for one older couple. They watched Aziraphale and Crowley's argument with twin smiles until the taller of the two men started to chuckle. Crowley cut off mid-sentence to glare at the other pair.

  
"Care to share the joke, mate?" Crowley asked over Aziraphale's shoulder. Aziraphale smacked Crowley on the arm and he winced. He was never sure if Aziraphale wasn't aware of his own strength or if he hit him that hard on purpose. 

  
"Is this your first Christmas together?" the taller man asked in return. He didn't appear to be flustered at all by Crowley's hostility. Crowley and Aziraphale shared a glance.

  
"Yes, you could say that," Aziraphale answered haltingly. 

  
"I remember our first Christmas together," the shorter man said as he linked arms with his counterpart, "I thought Mark would just burn the tree down and be done with it all together." Mark laughed.

  
"I considered it but I didn't much fancy getting strangled with tinsel in my sleep," Mark said. Crowley was beginning to think he may have missed several opportunities for demonic influencing. 

  
"You'll figure it out," the shorter man said, "we did." The two men gave each other such a soppy look that Crowley almost felt like some sort of voyeur. Aziraphale gave a nervous sort of chuckle as the two men moved on and Crowley felt an odd sinking feeling. Of course the idea of them being a couple made Aziraphale uncomfortable. Why wouldn't it? He was a demon.

  
"How about we compromise?" Crowley offered, feeling a tad defeated. Aziraphale turned back to him with a raised eyebrow.

  
In the end, they left the store with black and gold themed baubles and tinsel. In exchange for not getting any felt creatures Aziraphale got to choose the tree topper. Crowley had to admit the crystalline star _was_ rather pretty.

  
Things went significantly better at the tree lot. Crowley felt more at ease amongst the green of the pine trees and their heady scent helped relieve the tension in his shoulders. Aziraphale was being his usual fussy self but Crowley was content to walk beside him and simply watch as the angel turned a critical eye on every single tree. Crowley's only opinions were about the health of the trees Aziraphale pointed out to him and their size. Aziraphale seemed to need to be reminded of how tall exactly his back room was.

  
They meandered for so long that the fairy lights overhead twinkled to life before Aziraphale had it narrowed down between two trees. Crowley watched Aziraphale dither and couldn't help but smile. Aziraphale was pushy and particular and indecisive to a fault and Crowley was powerless against the fondness he felt towards the angel. A cold wind whipped through the trees and Crowley attempted to suppress a shiver. 

  
Contrary to popular belief, Crowley was not cold blooded. The whole serpent thing gave people the wrong idea. He was, however, a man shaped being and thus prone to being affected by the weather. 

  
"I'm sorry, dear, it is awfully cold out here isn't it?" Aziraphale had apparently noticed the shiver and turned his attention on Crowley. Crowley started to tell him yes it is, seeing as it's the middle of winter but before he could say a word Aziraphale started to unravel the scarf around his neck.

  
"What are you doing?" Crowley asked warily. Rather than answer, Aziraphale swung his scarf around Crowley's neck and moved in close to wrap it around him. Crowley stayed very, very still as Aziraphale adjusted the blue material. If he so chose, Crowley could count the angel's eyelashes. They hadn't been this close since that day at the ex-nunnery and Crowley's brain didn't seem to want to function anymore. Aziraphale smoothed the scarf down one more time and was his touch lingering or was Crowley just lovesick?

  
"There, that should help. I did tell you to bring a scarf," Aziraphale said as he stepped away and Crowley vowed to destroy all the scarves he owned. "Now, which one of these do you think is better?" Crowley took the out and circled both of the trees and willed his heart to beat at a reasonable rate. Compared to how long it took Aziraphale to narrow down the options Crowley made his decision at light speed. He told the angel to wait by the chosen tree while he went and grabbed a salesperson.

  
When the salesperson told them that the tree would need to be strapped to the top of the Bentley Crowley had a fit. Not just any old fit, mind you, it was a fit to end all fits. Aziraphale let him rant and rave at the frightened salesperson for a bit before adding himself to the mix.

  
"What other choice do we have, Crowley?" he asked.

  
"We could just die," Crowley responded. Aziraphale clicked his tongue in exasperation and told the salesperson to go ahead and strap the tree up there. Crowley loudly let Aziraphale and everyone else in a five block radius know exactly how he felt about the situation and didn't stop whinging all the way back to the bookshop.

  
Aziraphale took the ornaments and such into the shop while Crowley stood on the sidewalk and considered the tree on top of his car. He wasn't particularly looking forward to carrying the thing but he supposed there was nothing for it. He was undoing the straps when Aziraphale joined him.

  
"Hope you're ready to get your hands dirty, angel," Crowley told him and Aziraphale looked down at his hands, no doubt already mentally scheduling a nail appointment, and sighed. With the straps undone, Crowley circled around to the other side of the Bentley and gave the tree a shove. The tree hit the ground with a dull thunk and shed quite a few needles.

  
"Crowley!" came Aziraphale's scandalized voice. Crowley peeked over the top of the Bentley to glare at him.

  
"You were supposed to catch that," he told him.

  
"You wanted me to catch an entire _tree_?" Aziraphale asked incredulously. Crowley shook his head in a way that implied _duh_. He came back around to the sidewalk and picked up the top of the tree. Aziraphale spared a moment to glare at Crowley before picking up the base. It took some finagling on Aziraphale's part and some swearing on Crowley's part but they got the tree situated in the back room. Crowley brushed pine needles from his clothes while Aziraphale pulled the decorations out of the bags.

  
Crowley began putting ornaments on the tree at random, confident that there wasn't a science to it. Aziraphale huffed and went behind him to reposition every single thing Crowley put on the tree. The demon gritted his teeth and repeated to himself _just get through this_ like a mantra. Finally, all that was left was the star. Crowley held the branches steady while Aziraphale tried to position the star just so. 

  
The star didn't seem to want to sit straight no matter what Aziraphale did. After several minutes of struggling Aziraphale sighed and with a snap his fingers the star sat perfectly on top of the tree. Crowley stared wordlessly at Aziraphale and waited for him to realize what he'd done. The angel smiled at the tree but the expression seemed to freeze on his face as they heard a letter coming through the mail slot.

  
"By all means, Aziraphale, you go collect this one," Crowley told him and gestured to the front door with a sweep of his arm. Aziraphale had the good grace to look embarrassed as he shuffled to the front of his shop to do just that. He came back with a letter bearing one single word: Really?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> fyi i have most of this fic already written so it'll definitely be completed it's just the editing slowing me up. if you commented/gave kudos on the first chapter just know that i love you


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tape had to be something Hell had thought up Crowley was certain of it.

It had been three days since the Tree Incident during which Crowley lurked around his flat and took his feelings out on his plants. He was furious with Aziraphale. He scowled down at the plant mister in his hand and wondered if his true punishment for being an inquisitive little shit was being saddled with Aziraphale. They had one simple task, two if he wanted to be technical, and they couldn't even manage that. 

  
How do you fuck up decorating a Christmas tree for someone's sake? _Just ask Aziraphale_ , Crowley thought as he stalked around his trembling plants. That ridiculous, infuriating angel just _had_ to go and snap his fingers and cock up their first task. He just could not leave well enough alone, could he?

  
Aziraphale was a very exact creature who liked things a certain way. Crowley could respect that, he could. His clothes, his flat, his Bentley were all maintained at the highest possible standards. Aziraphale took it to a whole new level, though. The angel's clothes, outdated and stuffy as they were, were painstakingly cared for by hand. Crowley could not count how many times he watched Aziraphale prepare tea and cocoa the human way just for the ceremony of it. He even had those ridiculous white gloves for when he handled and repaired old books _by hand_ and _without miracles_.

  
Crowley lowered the plant mister. He supposed he couldn't really blame Aziraphale for wanting to get the tree just right. It was in his shop after all and if there was anything on this earth that Aziraphale loved it was his bookshop. Crowley didn't think he would ever forget the look on Aziraphale's face when he had to remind him that it had burned down. Now that he had it back in perfect condition Crowley couldn't begrudge him a little perfectionism.

  
If Crowley was being fair he'd have to admit to being a bit of a tyrant the last few months. The first time he saw a lit candle in the shop he had come unglued and confiscated the lot of them. He took the chalk, too, just for good measure. He had snapped away all the dust after reminding Aziraphale that he already lived in a tinderbox there wasn't any reason to make the place even more flammable, but Aziraphale had just snapped the dust right back and gave Crowley a very sound telling off. 

  
Well, excuse him for not wanting a repeat of the discorporation incident. That was the whole point of complying with that holly, jolly bastard and they had fucked up on the first task. Crowley gripped the plant mister. Why couldn't he leave well enough alone?

  
Crowley's phone rang and he let it go to voicemail, as was his habit these days. He didn't want to accidentally answer a call from Hell, or worse, a telemarketer. Aziraphale's voice filled the flat.

  
"Crowley? We've got our next task," his voice said. Crowley rushed to the phone and picked up the receiver.

  
"And? What is it?" Crowley asked.

  
"I haven't opened it yet," Aziraphale answered. Crowley pinched the bridge of his nose.

  
"And why not?"

  
"We're supposed to be doing this together, Crowley, and I'm operating under the assumption that it also includes reading the letters," he told him.

  
"Interested in following the rules, now, are we?" Crowley said with a hint of irritation. There was a pointed silence.

  
"I believe I apologized for that," Aziraphale said. Crowley scoffed.

  
"No, I think I would've remembered that."

  
"Well, the apology was implied," Aziraphale mumbled, "do you want to know what the next task is or not?" 

  
"Yes, yes, alright I'll be there in a moment," Crowley said with a sigh. He wondered how many other "implied apologies" he missed over the years. 

* * *

  
Crowley waved a vague hand and the doors to the bookshop flung open with a _bang_. Aziraphale had a mug in one hand, a red envelope in the other, and a peeved expression. 

  
"Why?" he asked tiredly.

  
"Why not?" Crowley asked in return. Another wave of his hand had the doors closing behind him. Aziraphale let out a long sigh as he tore open the envelope. "Well, what's it say?"

  
"Purchase and wrap gifts for all your friends," Aziraphale told him as he refolded the paper. Crowley cocked an eyebrow.

  
"Friends? Do we have any of those?" Crowley began to make his way to the back room and Aziraphale trailed behind him.

  
"Yes, we have friends," he said sounding a little impatient, "I should think the humans that were there with us on the airbase are our friends." Crowley's tart reply died on his tongue when he saw the Christmas tree was still there.

  
"You kept it?" Crowley asked. He assumed Aziraphale would've gotten rid of it after the star debacle. There were two ornaments that hadn't been there when they had decorated it and Crowley missed Aziraphale's reply as he crept closer to inspect them.

  
They were little felt things because of course they were. One was clearly meant to be Aziraphale with its tiny beige coat and two blue pinpricks for eyes. Crowley reached out to feel the material and wasn't surprised at all to find that it's clothes were made out of the same material the real Aziraphale's were made out of. He shifted his attention to the other ornament and his heart decided to abandon all sense of rhythm. It was a miniature Crowley, all in black with golden dots for eyes and a tiny frown. 

  
Crowley couldn't quite get his mouth to work so he gestured to the two figures as a sort of question. Aziraphale cleared his throat as a faint blush painted his cheeks. Crowley knew he was not going to like the answer.

  
"I wanted something a little more personal, sort of like signing your name at the bottom of a painting," Aziraphale began, looking anywhere but at Crowley, "so I miracled those. I know I wasn't supposed to but after the star I figured it couldn't really hurt." Crowley was right, he did not like that answer at all. Aziraphale wanted to commemorate their dumb little tree with dumb little dolls and he put the dumb little Crowley next to the dumb little Aziraphale and _why_ was Crowley getting choked up over a tree ornament?

  
"Right," Crowley said when he was sure his voice wouldn't tremble. "Right," he repeated and then because he knew his corporation couldn't handle acknowledging the situation he said, "let's go pick out some gifts then, yeah?" 

* * *

Aziraphale, the materialistic hedonist that he was, became downright giddy in the department store. He even laughed when Crowley asked a salesperson where they kept their spatial awareness, for the book girl. Crowley was more than happy to take the backseat on this one and let the angel flit between displays and racks.

  
It was mercilessly crowded and Crowley stuck close to Aziraphale's side. He took it upon himself to shoulder his way through the clumps of people so Aziraphale could get a closer look at whatever it was that had caught his eye. Crowley dutifully held onto everything Aziraphale picked out and tried his best to tune out the cacophony of noise around them.

  
They had wandered into a particularly crowded section of the department store and Crowley was forcibly reminded of Hell and the ever present press of bodies in its cramped halls. As soon as the thought had formed he looked over at Aziraphale and noticed a tightness in his face. Yes, he must be remembering that, too.

  
"Come on, angel," Crowley said, shuffling the items into one arm and wrapping the other around Aziraphale's shoulders, "let's head back this way. I think I saw something over here that Newt might like." Aziraphale allowed himself to be led away. He didn't shy away from Crowley's touch which made the demon's heart leap up into his throat. Crowley kept his arm in place even after the tension had left Aziraphale's form and delighted in the electric warmth.

* * *

  
"Alright, so you just fold it like this, yeah?" Crowley and Aziraphale were sitting on the floor of the bookshop surrounded by wrapping paper and ribbons. Neither one of them knew how to wrap a gift so Crowley had pulled up various YouTube videos. They were trying to follow the steps with varying degrees of success.

  
"Yes, that looks correct," Aziraphale said, studying Crowley's work with a critical eye, "you don't need to use so much tape, though." Crowley scoffed but had to concede that maybe he didn't need a roughly three foot long piece of tape. He tried to cut it into smaller pieces with the scissors but the tape did what tape is wont to do and stuck to the blades. Aziraphale's eyebrows shot up nearly into his hairline and Crowley briefly entertained the idea of throwing the scissors and the damned tape into the fireplace. 

  
"Just for the record, I think it's bullshit that you're already good at this," Crowley muttered. The gifts Aziraphale had wrapped were pretty and perfect and without a single wrinkle in the paper. Crowley was still working on his first gift.

  
"Yes, well, we all have our talents, dear," Aziraphale said, the smug bastard. Crowley elected to ignore the remark and focus on the task at hand. Tape had to be something Hell had thought up Crowley was certain of it. It seemed to want to stick to every surface except where it was supposed to go. The demon reached his limit when he managed to tape the paper to the floor and reached one hand up, preparing to snap his fingers. 

  
Aziraphale lunged across the space between them and wrapped a hand around Crowley's wrist. Crowley froze and his world seemed to narrow down to the gentle pressure being applied by the angel. He didn't seem to be able to look away from the manicured hand gripping his wrist and he felt his nerve endings light up like the Christmas tree in the corner. 

  
"No demonic interventions," Aziraphale said softly, "you can do this." Could he, though? He wasn't even sure what he was supposed to be doing anymore. His mind was too busy imagining what it would be like if his dearest friend grabbed his other wrist too and pushed him down into the threadbare rug. Crowley wondered if he would taste like the cocoa he had been drinking. Aziraphale took his hand back and Crowley felt bereft. 

  
"Alright, just... just help me with the fucking tape," Crowley said gruffly. Aziraphale laughed and did as he was asked. 

  
Once all the gifts were wrapped and arranged under the tree, the pair stepped back to admire their work. Crowley's misshapen packages looked horribly shoddy next to Aziraphale's pristine handiwork and he tried his best not to ascribe any deeper meaning to the disparity.

  
At least they had manged to successfully complete their second task. Crowley sighed in relief.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> every year I pitch a minor fit over wrapping gifts so I decided to have Crowley do the same in order to vindicate myself. thank you to everyone who has commented on this fic so far I swear I'll get around to replying!

**Author's Note:**

> so y'all can blame The Killers and their song Don't Shoot Me Santa for this incredibly self indulgent fic


End file.
